The Earl of Clancarty (CB)

My Lords, I will be brief. I am grateful for all the support across the Committee that my noble friend Lady Prashar and I have had for our amendments. I am disappointed by the Minister’s initial response. I am very happy to meet her; it is essential that we do so between now and Report. I will pick up on a couple of points. I am very happy that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and the noble Baroness, Lady Griffin, mentioned education, which is so important. We are basically saying that we have an area of competence that has its own identity; it is not covered by anything else. I am not sure whether, for “local infrastructure”—which is the competence in paragraph (a)—the first thing that people will think about are the arts. There is a massive danger that local arts will get forgotten in favour of the commercialised end of the creative industries. That worries me more than anything else. My noble friend Lady Prashar spoke about social cohesion, which is an important part of this. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and the noble Baroness, Lady Griffin, talked about the transformation of cities. This amendment would have a huge effect on cities. Having this as its own area of competence would make a massive difference; it would be a game-changer in how strategic authorities, local authorities and the public look at the legislation when it becomes an Act. For now, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.